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(1) how poverty is measured impacts who gets classified as impoverished
conclusions drawn by an organization about progress toward their poverty alleviation objectives may in large part depend on how they choose to measure poverty
while the interest in measuring poverty is broadly shared, the approach to defining and measuring poverty is not
the four poverty measurement approaches we compared are "regular" daily per-capita expenditure; the demographic and health surveys' (dhs) wealth index; the poverty probability index (ppi); and anirudh krishna's stages of progress. these approaches reflect a variety of perspectives and relative prioritization of comprehensiveness versus implementation feasibility
correlations are consistently weak
households' poverty rankings differ by an entire quartile on average
all four approaches suggest a conception of poverty based largely on material wealth deficits. this stands in contrast to methodologies that center poverty within notions of limited opportunities or capabilities
calorific minimums
every additional livestock unit a household owns lowers its wealth ranking
novel machine-learning algorithms can increase the availability of predictions of household poverty, but they can only predict poverty vis a vis the existing definition associated with the input data. when these developers do not define the type of poverty they are trying to predict, the intellectual distance between what the algorithm is trying to do and the first-order questions about how poverty is being defined only compounds
none of the poverty measurement approaches we compared appears well-positioned to identify households who fluctuate between barely surviving and stable enough to build new capabilities. households in this intermediate group are often overlooked, despite presenting important implications for policy development. these households can meet their basic needs on some days, but small shocks (e.g., a sick family member or bad harvest) can easily trigger a descent back into survival mode
one study in uganda found that the share of households living below the poverty line fell by 9 percentage points over the 25-y period from 1980 to 2005. this statistic masks the fact that almost one in four (24%) households escaped poverty during this period, while another 15% fell into poverty
so courteous as to be practically indistinguishable from his butler
they invented a treatment for gonorrhoea. their product, argyrol, became a market leader for decades and made barnes rich, then very rich, then an art collector
he acted like a raging bull who occasionally stopped to have his muzzle stroked or his shirt praised while grazing on a piece of lush grass; then he was off on the rampage again
or even rehung differently
shepherds who smell of sheep
mass at lampedusa
his letter on the value of literature quotes..borges
daily phone calls to catholics in gaza
over the next month, tallet's team uncovered more than a thousand fragments of papyrus. they had found, almost by accident, a first-hand account of the men who built the great pyramid of giza
khufu did not invent the pyramid - djoser and his architect, imhotep, designed the step pyramid about a century earlier - but he did come from a family of pyramid builders. his father was responsible for three, culminating in his magnum opus, the red pyramid at dahshur, which is more than a hundred metres tall and is the first true pyramid with smooth sides
the largest granite beams are around seventy tonnes, the weight of an m1 abrams tank
(5) in 2012 facebook had grown to a billion users worldwide - or one in seven people on the planet
the predatory cupidity of zuckerberg, his long-serving chief operating officer sheryl sandberg, and their lieutenants
who asks xi jinping, the president of china, to name his unborn child (xi refuses)
sandberg, however, was so impressed with parscale's work that she wanted to hire him
that slightly shocked, frozen look that people often show in group photos from long ago
the ghastly president andrew johnson ("this is a country for white men," he wrote, "and...as long as i am president, it shall be a government for white men")
alabama established an agricultural college and property rights for married women, and its constitutional convention resolved that ex-slaves could collect pay from their former owners for the period they were kept enslaved after the emancipation proclamation - surely america's first reparations bill
general howard of the freedman's bureau later showed a very different spirit as he led a war against the nez perce people. "the rise of the jim crow south and the conquest of the west, often told as separate stories, were parallel events connected at a fundamental level," sinha writes. general william tecumseh sherman, leader of the union army's march through georgia, was in the field again, declaring, "we must act with vindictive earnestness against the sioux even to the extermination of men, women, and children"
even the great frederick douglass reflected a touch of this spirit when he said that there might be "a deficiency inherent to the latin races" and advocated american annexation of what today is the dominican republic
graduated from yale in 1810 when twenty years old and became an itinerant teacher, teaching farm technology and lecturing on geology in the northeastern states
(8) the american lyceum: its history and contribution to education by cecil b. hayes
the third annual meeting of the national lyceum was opened in new york on may 3, 1833. william a. duer, president of columbia college, was appointed president
all sects in religion and all parties in politics have equal rights and opportunities. sectarian politics and sectarian religion to be emphatically and wholly excluded
the convention might petition congress to insert a new item in taking the next census; viz, to see how many children there are in each state between the ages of 7 and 16 who have received no elementary education
wendell phillips, one of the early lyceum lecturers, is said to have given his lecture on "the lost arts" two thousand times before lyceum audiences
before we have the commodity we want, we must manufacture it
the enthusiasm with which people maintained their lyceums can be better appreciated by recalling the lack of educational institutions, schools, books, magazines, and newspapers and the slow means of communication and travel
the greatest handicap of the system was its loose and ineffective organization. it had no authority
mr. holbrook, who spent much time and money (he was able to do this, being wealthy) in traveling about forming lyceums
(9) article by vladimir putin "on the historical unity of russians and ukranians"
the formula they apply has been known from time immemorial - divide and rule
the process of polonization and latinization began, ousting orthodoxy
but the cossacks were not heard
the name "ukraine" was used more often in the meaning of the old russian word "okraina" (periphery)
underlain by the common faith, shared cultural traditions, and - i would like to emphasize it once again - language similarity
in 1948, zmeyiniy island (snake island) in the black sea became part of ukraine. in 1954, the crimean region of the rsfsr was given to the ukranian ssr, in gross violation of legal norms that were in force at the time
one fact is crystal clear: russia was robbed, indeed
the common tragedy of collectivization and famine of the early 1930s was portrayed as the genocide of the ukranian people
the new "maidan" authorities
russia has done everything to stop fratricide
and what ukraine will be - it is up to its citizens to decide
(10) not an island but a continent
amerigo's two older brothers, antonio and girolamo
starting in the late 1490s vespucci participated in two voyages to the new world that are relatively well-documented in the historical record. two others have been alleged but the evidence is more problematic. traditionally, vespucci's voyages are referred to as the "first" through "fourth", even by historians who dismiss one or more of the trips
they passed two huge rivers (the amazon and the para) which poured freshwater 25 miles (40 km) out to sea
after hispaniola they made a brief slave raid in the bahamas, capturing 232 lucayans, and then returned to spain
at 23° s they found a bay which they named rio de janeiro because it was 1 january 1502
emerson called vespucci a "thief" and "pickle dealer" from seville who managed to get "half the world baptized with his dishonest name"
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